Happy Birthday Papa George!

Nana and Papa George came to visit in September. We celebrated Papa's birthday before they left. Lyla helped him open his cards and present.

Lyla loves to pretend to lie down and rest, but she never really settles down. She would tell Papa and Nana to go to sleep, but then she roared like a bear to wake them up...over and over.

Sweet Caroline!

Tommy and I decided on a name for our baby girl who is due on Christmas day! Her name is Caroline Elizabeth Morrow. The name Caroline is a form of the name Carolina, and since North Carolina is where Tommy and I grew up and where we met we think the name is perfect. "Sweet Caroline" is also a really fun song by Neil Diamond that I hope Caroline will enjoy singing and dancing to. I hope our baby girl will love her name as much as we do.

Family Vacation for 3

Tommy and I decided that we should go on a vacation with just the three of us before the baby is born. We went to Pensacola over Labor Day weekend. It's the first time we have done a vacation with just us three. Tommy went to flight school there and wanted to revisit and show me and Lyla around. Lyla did great and we had a wonderful time together.

On the way, we made A LOT of potty stops for Lyla. We have a travel potty in the car which makes the stops pretty quick because we don't have to go inside anywhere. We also heard Lyla say "Are we there yet?" for the first time. We weren't even out of Jacksonville when she asked.

The first night we got there we ate at McGuires Irish Pub which was right across from our hotel. The food was awesome and the atmosphere was great. They have money hanging everywhere. We all three enjoyed our dinner.

Our first morning, we went to the condo where Tommy used to live. They are now vacation rentals. Tommy lived on the second floor in the condo right above his head in this picture. It's overlooking the pool and the tiki bar. Oh, to be 22 again...

Then we went to the Aviation Museum on the Navy base. Tommy used to work at this museum when he lived there. Lyla had a lot of fun there.

Lyla in the rescue basket.

This is a play area for kids. I think Lyla is going to enjoy driving one day.

There were lots of old planes and helicopters to climb in.

This is the helicopter Tommy learned to fly in. Not the actual one, but the same kind.

After lunch at the museum and attempting to get Lyla to take a nap, we went to Pensacola beach. Lyla LOVES the beach. She enjoys playing in the sand and jumping the waves in the ocean. She even shared her toys with a couple of little girls who came to play with her. I thought I was going to have to charge for babysitting for a while there.
That night we ate at the Fish House. Lyla was so tired, I'm not sure she even knew she was at a restaurant, but she did great. She fell asleep in the car afterwards.

The next day we went to the zoo in Gulf Breeze. This zoo was perfect for a young kid. It was small so Lyla could walk most of it, but we did carry her some. They had animals you could feed and pet and you could get really close to all the animals.

After the zoo, lunch at Bagelheads, and a short nap, we went for a bike ride in the cute neighborhood near our hotel. We even found a playground for Lyla to play on. I think Lyla looks so cute in her bike helmet.

We had so much fun in Pensacola and I was so impressed with how well Lyla did. She hardly fussed even though we were on the go the whole time and she did great with her potty training the whole weekend.

Do the Hokey Pokey and Turn Yourself Around!

Lyla took swimming lessons this summer and they ended every lesson with the hokey pokey in the pool. I have continued doing the hokey pokey with her and now she loves to do it by herself. Hopefully you can hear her singing in this video. She doesn't say all of the words, but she gets most of it.

Potty Training! AAAAHHHHH!

Lyla has been interested in using the potty for a few months now and would sometimes tell us when she needed to pee or poop and would go in the potty. I've felt like she was ready potty train, but have just been putting it off thinking it would just happen somehow. Then Lyla's BFF Anna Claire and her brave mom did a 3 day potty training boot camp. Anna Claire did so well, that pretty much our entire playgroup decided to do the same thing. The information is from an ebook written by Lora Jensen. The information in the ebook is really good, but 3 days definitely did not get the job done. Basically, the 3 days consisted of Lyla wearing nothing but big girl panties and a t-shirt so I could always see if she was having an accident. Then I had to follow her around for 3 days and when she started to go I would rush her to the potty to finish in the potty followed by a lot of cheering, positive reinforcement and a small treat. The toughest part was definitely staying home and devoting every minute of the day to watching her. I had to constantly say, "Are your panties dry?" or "Lyla, tell me when you need to potty, OK?" She had plenty of accidents and still has them sometimes, but overall I think she's doing great. She caught on to the peeing quickly, but poop was another story. When she has to poop she asks to potty every few minutes until she finally gets it out. She usually poops during bath time, but she's really good at asking to get out of the tub to go potty. I guess the warm bath relaxes her and helps her get it out. She also likes to be covered with her towel sometimes, for privacy I guess.

The night we bought Lyla's big girl panties, she wanted to see all of them. We bought Dora, Princess, and a pack of multi-color, multi-design Fruit of the Looms. She is so cute wearing them. Lyla does wear a pull-up at nap and night time (we call them sleeping panties though), but she occasionally wakes up dry and asks to go pee when she wakes up. We also never lay her down to dress or change her because that is for babies. Here she is covered in all her big girl panties. She loves them! I'm so proud of my big girl!!

Daddy's girl

There's not too much to say about this picture. When Tommy comes home from work Lyla likes to wear his boots, hat, dog tags, etc. This particular day we just didn't get her pants back on after using the potty. I'll do another post about using the potty.

Sprinkler fun!!

Nana and Papa George gave Lyla this sprinkler for her birthday. She didn't enjoy it too much in NC because their water is super cold, but she loved it at our house because for some reason our water never gets really cold. It has little ping pong balls that you can put in and then the water shoots them up in the air. You can make the water shoot much higher, but I kept it low for our shorty. It's pretty cool.

Furniture Shopping!

We've been doing A LOT of furniture shopping lately. With the baby on the way we've been moving things around in our house. We only have 3 bedrooms so the office/guestroom is going to be the nursery. We have a sleeper sofa and guests will now have to sleep in our living room. We sold our living room furniture on Craig's List in two days, so we moved the sleeper sofa in and bought a recliner. We still need one more chair, but we'll get to that one day. We also found big girl furniture for Lyla. This isn't what we bought in the picture, but she looked so cute in this bed I had to take her picture. She actually enjoyed trying out all the furniture and getting to know some of the sales people. One store even had a dog and Lyla followed the dog all around the store. Once we get her big girl furniture in I will post pictures of it. We ordered a bed and chest from Stanley's Young America line. It's really cute furniture if anyone is looking for kids furniture. We got it in white, but you can get pretty much any color you want. Oh, I just remembered that we have to get a mattress. Add that to my to do list. Suggestions anyone?

Anna Claire's Birthday Party

Anna Claire had a water play birthday party in July to celebrate turning 2. The party was great and lots of fun with yummy cupcakes.

I love this picture of the birthday girl hanging out under the palm tree.

Water table fun!

Anna Claire blowing out her candles after we sang Happy Birthday!

Lyla, Jacqueline, Sydney & Anna Claire eating their lunch.

Lyla had blue icing everywhere when she finished her cupcake.

Thanks for inviting Lyla to your Birthday party ACE.

Hands On Children's Museum

My parents visited in July and we took Lyla to the Children's Hands on Museum in Jacksonville. Lyla had a blast and we need to go back soon. It's good indoor fun for those hot Florida days. They have a toddler room full of toys, a fire truck, a police car, train, ball pits, slides, dress up clothes, grocery store, newsroom, the list goes on and on.

Here is Lyla with her Nana and Papa. None of us knew how to play Chess so Lyla had to teach herself.

Lyla at the castle.

This was a stage with dress up clothes behind it. Lyla loved to throw the curtain back and make a grand entrance.
The grocery store was really cool. They had all kinds of groceries to put in the little shopping carts.
There was one room just for toddlers which Lyla loved and they had small ball pit to play in.
Lyla and Nana off to fight a fire. She pretended to talk to her Dad on the radio.

Lyla resting in the choo choo train.

Happy Father's Day!

We had a great Father's Day. Lyla brought her Daddy his presents to open in bed. He got slippers (because we have new hard floor downstairs) and a water bottle so he can quit filling the land fills with plastic water bottles. Then we went to church and had lunch at The Homestead. Lyla was tired after all that excitement, but we managed to get a couple of good pictures of her with her Dad before we all took a nap.

Vacation is Officially Over!

It takes us about 6 hours to get home from North Myrtle Beach. Lyla started to get squirmy about 40 minutes from home, but we were so close we were just trying to push through and finally get home. So, 25 minutes from home it starts to rain on I-95. As usual, people start slamming on the breaks because rain is sooooo scary to some drivers. The cars in front of us came to an abrupt stop, Tommy easily stopped our car because he was paying attention, unlike a lot of the drivers around us because people in front of us were swerving off the road. As we stopped we both looked in our mirrors and felt relieved as we saw the car behind us come to a safe stop. Then, bang! Who hit us, we are trying to figure out. Then we realize the car behind us got rear ended so hard they were pushed into our car. Here's a picture of the back of our car. It's not too bad and doesn't look like a car hit it at all, right...

That's because our bikes were on the back, so they got pushed into our car. My bike was worse than Tommy's. My tire, gears, and peddles were all messed up. The cost to fix my bike was actually more than we paid for it a few years ago. However, because the price of bikes has gone up, and because I love my bike, I chose to have it fixed.

The accident wasn't too bad, mostly scary for us because it was the first one with Lyla in the car and because I was pregnant. We were all OK though. So, Lyla thought 40 minutes more was bad, she was in the car for another 2 1/2 hours. It took Highway Patrol forever to get there and write up the report. The 18 year olds that hit us didn't seem to care. They just hung out beside their car talking, laughing and smoking cigarettes. Oh, to be young again. And yes I remember how many times I wrecked my car before turning 22, but I always cared and got upset and learned from my mistakes. Never did I laugh as I stood beside of my wrecked car, especially if someone else was involved. The good Lord was looking after us that day and kept us safe.